Hey Spacejerk

Regret Everything

Dib wrapped his arms around his stomach. He'd have given an eyeball for a steak, medium-well, with perfectly caramelized trim and hot garlic mashed potatoes. He'd stopped feeling his stomach cramp by the end of the first week of Nutri-patches with Dad, but the craving for solid food never quit.

Zim's nutrition and hydration pills, on the other hand, put just enough in his stomach to awaken its roaring protest over continued deprivation. He traced the edges of his cell a footstep at a time, measuring and re-measuring his space.

Curiosity killed the cat, and he had, he decided, been a royal idiot to push "Decline" on the screen last time it had come in. The device had merely swiveled about and left him. That day's rations weren't dispensed. He wasn't sure if that was why he was still woozy, or if he hadn't yet recovered from whatever horror Zim had inflicted on his head.

He was staring at the wall again. The ghost hadn't appeared once since he'd been kidnapped. But then, ghosts were often anchored to places. Haunts. It was unlikely she would have followed him here. Dropping his eyes back to his feet, he trudged on, humming the song she used to sing.

The concrete floor was questionably stained in a couple of areas that Dib tended to avoid, one reddish-brown blotch just in front of the toilet, and another at the edge of the pallet.

The walls were marked with scratches, etchings from previous inhabitants. He didn't want to read them just yet. There was no telling how long he would be here, and he needed to conserve sources of mental stimulation for when he was desperate.

He couldn't get a decent look at the ceiling. Getting closer would require standing on the tallest part of the room, which was the sink. It was cracked enough that, given proper conditions, it might come apart.

No such luck with the door, though. The chains wrapping each side in place were the newest, cleanest parts of the entire prison, leading him to suspect Zim hadn't known how else to secure the busted door.

He didn't want to count the bars in the front wall of the cell, or the holes between them. That was another source of mental stimulation he could conserve. Right now, he could manage with just the questions in his head.

Like, how long could he last on just the questions in his head?

What kind of idiot pushes the "Decline" button when he could have gotten at least another face to look at and another voice to hear, if not real interaction?

Why was Zim being weird... er... than usual?

There was no window in Dib's cell and none in the cell across from his, which seemed identical to his. There was no way to tell how much time had passed, short of counting seconds out loud, which Dib was dangerously close to doing by the time the hovering screen returned. Dib had never hit "Accept" so fast in his life.

Zim's teeth were clenched. Spittle flew as he hissed out the words, "I hear you like hearing me scream at mailboxes. As such. I have provided you a record of the news report you spoke of. On a cycle. For the next ten hours."

Dib's hands flew to his ears, but he couldn't block out the high-pitched scream. There was the news report he'd laughed about months ago. Zim, standing in full disguise in front of his mailbox, cursing its spawner, cursing its mate, cursing its future spawn, and generally shrieking like a banshee on the eve of war.

The screen didn't leave this time. It spat out the two pellets and drifted up to the ceiling, pressing flat against the center.

Moaning, Dib retreated to his pallet and wrapped the scrawny pillow around his head. It was going to be a long ten hours.